


Handmade Christmas

by AdamantSteve



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
Genre: Acrobatics, Archery, Christmas, Crafts, Feelstide, Gen, Gifts, Knitting, M/M, circus skills, hand made, homemade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 17:24:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdamantSteve/pseuds/AdamantSteve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The team agree to do without expensive gifts for one another, and make each other things instead. Clint doesn't know what to make...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Handmade Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Written for prompt 32 of Feelstide: Handmade Christmas.

Steve and Bruce have guilt tripped everyone into not buying gifts, even though (or perhaps because) they all have more than enough money to buy elaborate, perfect gifts for each other. "Just make something," Steve said, like that's so easy. But everyone agrees to it in the end, much to Clint’s frustration. 

The whole thing comes fairly easily to Tony, being the generous uncle quartermaster of the team anyway. But he’s canny about what he’s working on for each of them, keeping the workshop’s glass frosted in the weeks leading up to Christmas and just looking smug whenever anyone asks what the hell he's making. 

Steve has it down, too, what with his skills and the veritable art school’s worth of supplies Tony set him up with when he moved in. And he could pretty much just fart on something and Phil would be happy to frame it and mark it down on his Captain America spreadsheet.

Bruce is quiet, but he’ll most likely display some hitherto unknown skill and unveil beautiful hand crafted things or create amazing teas out of rare herbs from Africa. Something that'll make everyone gasp in touched awe. Bastard.

Thor’s gifts are anyone’s guess, really. Clint is convinced he’ll bring back some exotic alien animal skin rugs from Asgard, judging by the decor in his suite, but the possibilities truly are unknown. Clint has his fingers crossed for some sort of unusual weapon or a weird animal preserved in a jar. 

Coulson’s always good with gifts, being from the same tasteful, thoughtful school of gift giving as Pepper, but Clint has never seen him make anything with his hands, now that he comes to think of it. But hell, it's Coulson. He's amazing at everything. If anyone has hidden skills it's him. 

Natasha, however, isn’t a mystery. Which Clint’s glad of purely because it excuses him from having to hide the disappointment the rest will no doubt show when presented with her... special gifts. 

“Stop squirming!” She snaps, pushing Clint’s arm back up so she can sew the two halves of the garish knitted sweater together. Clint sighs quietly and looks down at the huge turquoise blue A in a tomato red circle in the centre of what will be Steve’s chest, come Christmas day. On Clint it sags over his stomach - he’s swimming in the thing.

It’s not even that they’re badly made, they’re actually amazing quality: good, expensive merino wool, fitted perfectly to surreptitiously acquired measurements. It’s that they’re so damn ugly. Tony’s one is the brightest red Clint has ever seen and features an equally bright yellow Iron Man mask across the chest. She’s been working on them for months now, and she looks so damn sweet knitting away with a determined look of concentration on her face. It would take a crueller (and let’s face it, far stupider) man than Clint to tell her how garish they are.  

Still, they’re something. They’re better than what Clint’s managed to get, which, with less than two weeks to go, is squat. 

It’s too late to learn to knit. He can’t just shoot some stuff for them... or _can_ he? No, he puts that idea out of his mind when he visualises trying to get a deer carcass in the elevator. 

“What are you making, anyway?” Natasha asks, mind reader that she is. She pulls Steve’s mostly finished sweater off of Clint before he can answer. “I have no fucking idea, Nat,” Clint says, running his fingers through his mussed hair, “I have exactly zero skills when it comes to this kinda crap. Shooting things and killing people, not really in the spirit of things. If I could cook I could at least make everyone some cookies or _something_.” 

Natasha doesn’t appear to be listening, working on the lurid sweater in her lap, and Clint sighs again, and she looks up sharply. “What did you do in the circus for Christmas?” 

Clint morosely picks at Bruce’s half-finished bright purple sweater on the bed once he sits on it and hugs his knees to his chest before answering. “Drank, mostly. Old George usually made a good meal,” Clint pursed his lips as he thought back on it. “We used to put on a little show of our own sometimes, if there was nothing else going on. That was nice.” 

Natasha doesn’t react other than to tip her head, and Clint just rolls his eyes. 

 -

Tony’s gifts are, predictably, perfection. He’s made Clint some ridiculous homing arrows that he _claims_ will come back to him when he presses their remote. As much as Clint wants to try them out, he’s vetoed by half the group (even if he is egged on by the other half). 

Bruce gives him a special callus balm he’s made from some ancient recipe which smells like honey and saffron, which Natasha immediately makes eyes at. 

Steve’s done this amazing full on painting of Clint in his uniform looking like a bonafide hero, done similar things for all of them, even Phil and Pepper. Phil practically cries, of course. 

Thor has brought them all insane things just as Clint figured he would. Mostly it’s clothing that shimmers in surreal ways that make it hard to look at, but for Clint, he’s brought the most beautiful arm guard of tooled leather, more flexible than it surely ought to be, considering it’s thickness. Clint’s touched.

Natasha’s insane sweaters go down a treat. Clint’s heretofore unseen one is actually pretty great - his exact favourite shade of purple with black arrows rather subtly put down the arms. He likes it. Thor can’t get enough of his: black with red sleeves and a huge knitted earth on the back, with I Heart Midgard on the front. 

 

Phil’s gifts are all tiny whittled figurines, and everyone loves them, too. They’re perfect right down to the goatee on miniature Tony’s smirking face. Clint’s is a tiny hawk that fits perfectly in his hand.

Pepper has made adorable tiny bags of candy for each of them, and shoos off praise with claims of having worked in a taffy shop for a semester in college. They’re completely brilliant, and the room fills with the sounds of chewing and hums of pleasure for a long while. 

No one says anything, but the question hangs in the air of what happened to Clint’s gifts, or perhaps that's just in Clint's head. Either way, when the silence drags and people start to discuss what else they should do, he calmly places everything down and murmurs he’ll be back in a few minutes. 

 -

His old circus costume is a little tight in some places, but it’s spandex so it just means it’s a better show for everyone. That’s what Clint tells himself anyway. Natasha meets him in the little hallway off the main living area in her insane approximation of what she thinks women in the circus wear, all spandex and sequins, with a cape. “You’re the best, Nat.” Clint promises. “I know,” she grins back. They already figured this out with a mildly perturbed JARVIS so the lights go down and music begins, and everyone chattering about their gifts falls silent.

JARVIS announces, “ _Ladies and gentlemen, for one night only, please welcome to the ring, the Amazing Hawkeye!”_ in an incredible version of a ringmaster’s tenor, and Clint backflips into the room, making Pepper shriek and Tony swear, and the rest of them gasp. He comes to land in the middle of the rounded out kinda-stage-like area rug in front of the couches and bows before straightening and giving his best pose. JARVIS continues, “ _-and his beautiful but deadly assistant, the Black Widow!_ ” And then Natasha tumbles out before flying through the air into Clint’s arms. He spins her around before delicately placing her on her feet. They’ve choreographed all this; her dance training and his circus stuff, combining into some weird amalgam of the two, clunkily graceful together. 

They're all clapping and grinning now as Natasha takes way longer than she needs to, gymnastically maneuvering over to where his bow is stashed behind the couch to then throw arrows at him like throwing knives, that Clint catches in increasingly elaborate ways: behind his back, under his legs, between his palms, til he has a dozen and she throws the bow itself at him. 

Everyone watches Natasha while she swings on the chandelier and then cartwheels off to the far side of the room and as soon as she’s there, Clint shoots an arrow right at her, caught by the miniature target she holds up at the last moment. Pepper’s having conniptions and Steve’s looking antsy, but in the corner of Clint’s eye Phil and Tony are loving it. Natasha plays target while Clint extravagantly shoots at her: bouncing arrows off of things, standing on his head, shooting with his eyes closed. Everyone's either gasping, grinning or gaping in shock and Clint spins and bows once all but one of the arrows are gone.

For his last act - the classic William Tell - he asks a member of the audience to volunteer, and Pepper bodily hauls Tony back onto the couch when he goes to stand up. Phil stands to friendly jeers and Natasha places a perfect red apple complete with leaf atop his head. Phil’s facing away from the rest of the group but looking right at Clint when he takes aim and it’s kind of unnerving. Clint’s maybe done this stupid trick a thousand times and no one’s ever looked back at him that fucking calm. 

Bruce has covered his eyes and Thor looks like an actual little kid at the circus, swept up in it all. Clint takes a breath and almost feels a little wobbly with Phil’s eyes boring into him like that, but he takes the shot and even if it isn’t quite as dead centre as he’s strictly happy with, it’s still impressive enough that everyone cheers.  

He takes a bow and everyone’s whoops and whistles. Clint calls for applause for his beautiful assistant and for his brave volunteer, and Phil laughs as he bows too. 

When they sit back down to back pats and congratulations, Clint’s still in his leotard, but it feels nice sitting next to Phil and being able to feel him so close to his skin through the spandex. It’s silly, but he kind of doesn’t want to move from here, feeling every little movement of Phil just sitting there crammed up next to him on the over-loaded couch. 

Bruce is the other side of him and soon falls asleep, what with the big meal and all the other indulgences they’ve had, and soon enough everyone’s in various states of sleep, Thor snoring quietly on the floor, Steve in an armchair, and Clint lets himself curl up next to Phil seeing as everyone else is doing it.


End file.
